


at the gallows it was mercy i had found

by cordiewrites



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Aborted Undertale Genocide Run, Chara Is Not Evil, Flowey is not evil, Gen, Nonbinary Chara (Undertale), Nonbinary Frisk (Undertale), Papyrus is a Good Brother, Reader is Frisk (Undertale), Undertale Genocide Route, but boy do they both make some questionable decisions, eventually, neither is frisk, so is sans, the character death is only in the first chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-26 02:50:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20036683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordiewrites/pseuds/cordiewrites
Summary: *Papyrus is sparing you.A human falls into the Underground with no intention of making friends - just the opposite, actually. Somehow, though, thanks to a very persistent skeleton (and a few other folks), they end up making friends anyway. A little bit of mercy can go a long way, huh?





	at the gallows it was mercy i had found

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: This chapter is really depressing! And has a lot of murder! And not that many deviations from the game! Future chapters will be much more different and much less murder-y, I promise. 
> 
> Also, a lot of the dialogue in this chapter comes directly from the game. Again, this won't be the case in future chapters! But this chapter is more focused on the internal thoughts and monologue than what actions are actually happening, if that makes sense, while future chapters will be more of a mix.
> 
> Summary for this chapter:  
A human falls to the Underground. The results are not pretty, for anyone involved.

Your whole body aches.

The moment would be almost gorgeous, poetic in its beauty, if it weren't for the pain coursing through your every bone. The golden flowers surround you, gently caressing your body (you hardly spare a thought to how many of them you crushed in your fall), and the early-morning daylight trickles in through the hole far, far up in the ceiling, a perfect picture of a beautiful day framed by the cave entrance. It's so far up. It's so very, very far up.

How on Earth did you survive that fall?

It doesn't matter. You roll over and bring yourself to your hands and knees, ignoring the stinging pain as you put weight onto the limbs; it's a miracle none of them seem to be fractured. You pay the pain no mind as you bring yourself to your feet and look at your surroundings.

The cavern is grey, devoid of all color except the patch of yellow flowers you landed on. There's nothing around, no one, but the structure at the end of the cavern looks too manmade to be natural. You grab for the stick you'd picked up on the mountain and hold it up in front of you as you walk (more like lurch, but you aren't thinking about the pain your legs are in, you aren't thinking about that) towards the arch.

Through it, you enter another room. Instead of a patch of golden flowers, there's just one, directly between you and the next door.

It has a face.

It's smiling at you.

Your hand shakes, but holds your stick firm.

"Howdy!" it greets, and you almost attack it right then and there. There’s no way that’s natural. But you hold back and listen to its explanation, about this world, about your… soul. It sounds like it's trying to help you, but you don't trust it at all - and then its "friendliness pellets" hit you, and you fall to your knees, clutching yourself in pain, pain, PAIN. You’ve felt pain before, you’ve felt a lot of pain before, but this doesn’t feel like that. This doesn’t feel like normal pain. This feels - like something directly attacking your soul.

So that's it, then. The things living here are no different from the ones you escaped. They're all trying to kill you just as much. And now you're about to die. You hold your stick, and you tremble in your boots, and you close your eyes and wait for your death to come.

Until Toriel comes, and scares the flower off. You're terrified, at first - a talking flower is one thing, but this thing, this beast, this monster, it could kill you in an instant, could do anything it wanted.

And then she speaks, and her voice is gentle, with a texture like melted butterscotch (your favorite). Somehow, it causes your beating heart to calm in your chest, just a bit, as she introduces herself and offers to guide you through the ruins. You hesitate, only a moment - she could betray you at any time, just like the flower did - but then you nod and take her hand.

She's warm. It feels... almost comforting.

Your eyes are wide as you watch her complete the first puzzle. As far as you can figure out, this place, it's the home of monsters. Or it was, once, until it fell into ruin... All the buildings you walk through seem in disrepair, the puzzles barely maintained.

You've never cared much for puzzles. You never understood why you couldn't just skip them, in video games and such, and get to the exciting parts.

As you walk through one of the rooms, you fall behind, a little, looking around at the room you're in. And another monster approaches you - a frog almost the size of you. Your limbs tremble. What does it want, what does it want? Flowey and Toriel were both perfectly capable of speech, but this thing only croaks at you, so you brandish your stick at it.

You look ahead, hoping Toriel has seen and is coming back to take care of it, too, but she hasn't noticed and the thing just keeps hopping towards you. It's probably going to try and kill you, too, just like Flowey. And you can't cry out to Toriel.

So you hit it, with your stick. It lets out a croak and its body dissolves into white dust as you watch with horror. You killed it. You killed it.

Well, you think. Better you kill it than it kill you.

Your grip tightens on your stick, and you turn to run and catch up with Toriel.

If you stick close to her, she'll protect you. You can't count on a single stick being enough to stop everyone who tries to kill you. Toriel is nice, Toriel will protect you, right?

She leaves you alone. She leaves you alone, and anger swells in your chest, the way it always does. Just like everyone else - she promises she'll be back if you wait right there, but who knows when or if she will? A few minutes of waiting, and she's not coming back. She won't, will she? You set out, on your own.

If she won't protect you, you'll just have to protect yourself.

You’re filled with something, and you walk forward. Nothing to do but keep going.

Determination.

* * *

You walk through the ruins, filling your pockets with candy and gold as you go, and watching warily for more monsters. You see another one of those frog things - Froggit, you think, though you don't know how you know that. Who knows what those things' intentions were. You hit this one again, and again, it vanishes into a pile of dust.

Good, says a voice inside you that isn't quite yours, but is close enough you don't consciously notice a difference. It is good. Better that thing is dead than you.

You encounter more Froggits, and Whismurs, and Migosps and Moldsmalls, not questioning how you know their names any more than you question the pile of dust they leave behind. The dust covers your hand and coats your stick, sticks to your shoes and your pants and your sweater, but you don't mind.

At some point, the dust itself becomes more reason to kill than defending yourself. The killing - it's just systematic, it's just habit. You're breathing heavily as you go, buying baked goods from a spiderweb and solving puzzle after puzzle - negotiating with a rock to move and feeling dizzy in near-identical rooms trying to find the right switch and falling on your ass as you step on the wrong spot in the floor. God, you fucking hate puzzles.

You find a ribbon, discarded on the ground, and tie it around your head, while you're at it, and take the time to peel off your old, gross bandage and stuff it in your pocket. You also pocket your stick, too, after you find a plastic knife in a corner that looks sturdier and more likely to deal damage.

If the creatures underground spread their LOVE by attacking you mercilessly, then that's how you'll spread yours, too. It's only fair.

Eventually, you realize that you don't see any more monsters around. Guess they finally got the memo to leave you alone.

Or maybe, speaks a voice you don't quite realize isn't your own, they're all dead.

Those thoughts leave your mind when you round a corner and see Toriel again. Your eyes widen, as do hers when she sees you, almost dropping her groceries as she goes to make sure you're okay. She didn't abandon you after all.

You let her lead you into her house, where you smell a butterscotch-cinnamon pie baking and feel your knees tremble. She gives you a little room all to yourself, too, and you collapse into bed for a much needed nap.

She wants to give you a home here. She wants to protect you. And, God, you want to stay.

You can't stay.

Once she finds out you killed all those other monsters, she'll kick you out for sure. Toriel may love you, but you bet she probably has more of an allegiance to her own kind than to some random kid who just came this morning. It's a wonder she hasn't noticed the dust on all your clothes. And you can't stay down here, anyway. Not when everyone but Toriel wants to kill you.

You make your way out, find a plastic bag to put your pie in so it'll be safe in your pocket, and then tug on Toriel's sleeve. She smiles at you and offers to teach you and care for you again and you almost can't, but you have to, so you point to the sky with a questioning look on your face - an obvious meaning.

She gets it, and tries to evade, but can't forever. You keep insisting. You need to leave. You need to leave, or she’ll kick you out herself.

“I have to do something,” she says suddenly, and pushes past you out of the room.

You follow her downstairs, to the place she’d warned you out of before, and she explains what will happen if you go out to the rest of the underground. Tells you to go upstairs.

You almost do.

But some kind of anger flares up inside you. You've already decided you're going to leave. First she abandons you to make your way through the ruins on your own, now she insists you're not ready? You're going to go back to the surface.

So you stand your ground, and magic flares up around you as she insists you prove you can defend yourself.

You start to panic, your whole body trembling. You can barely hold your toy knife straight. You don’t want to fight her. You don't want to fight her. You don’t want to.

But she won't back down, no matter what you do, no matter what you try to gesture to her. She won't let you leave. She's treating you like a child, after you've already proven yourself to be more.

Still, you won’t fight her. You don’t want to hurt her, so you just stand there, try to evade (you’re not very good at dodging) as she attacks you, the hurt swelling in your chest, physical and emotional. You thought she would protect you, you thought she would keep you _safe,_ surely she wouldn’t hurt you, wouldn’t kill you-

A stray blast of fire hits a little too close to home, and you gasp, eyes welling up as you clutch your chest, feeling your soul shatter beneath you.

* * *

So this is how you die?

Everything is dark, and you _ache._ Not in your bones, the way it did when you fell. Inside. To your very core.

Toriel killed you. Toriel _killed_ you - and now you’re just gone. You sit up, in this void, clutching your chest, your stick, still, though you’re not really sure either of those things exist in this space. Your head pounds. Your soul aches.

A voice you don’t know calls you Chara, and begs you to wake up.

Who’s Chara, you think, or maybe say, it’s hard to tell in this space. You feel a hand on your shoulder, a whisper in your ear. _Wake up._

…You aren’t going to die here.

You wake up.

You’re in the basement of Toriel’s house again, looking around wildly, and see her walking ahead in front of you. Towards the exit. Was that a dream…? You follow her, again, quickening your pace.

Again, she stands, again, she challenges you. That was no dream, was it? That was real. You… she _killed_ you, and your hand shakes. How _dare_ she. How dare she pretend to protect you while plotting your death this whole time…!

You strike. You'll prove you're strong enough - stronger than her. You're enough. Why can't she see that?

She falls, whispering, asking if you hate her. Says she was protecting the rest of the Underground from you, not the other way around, after all.

Your hands shake. Maybe you do hate her, that much. Her soul splits in two as her dust spills all over the floor.

You sink to your knees. Nothing's in your way now. Nothing can stand against you, nothing will. She's dead. Toriel is dead.

You start laughing. You laugh and laugh and laugh, even as you feel her dust coat the inside of your lungs and cover your knife and your arms and your whole body, even as you feel tears slide down your face and drip into the dust below. Wiping your eyes just smears more dust over your face. You laugh more.

It feels like years later when you manage to pry yourself from the floor and move into the next room.

"Chara," Flowey calls you, and that is not your name, but it feels like it is. Like it might be. Something inside of you agrees with it, at least.

He tells you, you can destroy everything together, and you find yourself agreeing. You clutch your knife tighter. Not like anything matters anymore, really. The person you thought could give you a safe home turned against you, and now she’s dead. Everything is gone behind you. Might as well make everything ahead of you disappear, too.

Flowey disappears, and you exit the ruins, leaving nothing but dust behind you.

Determination.

* * *

Snow crunches underfoot, but you don't bother to seem confused. Of course this cave would have snow. Not that it matters to you.

"Human," says a voice, and you clutch your knife. "Turn around and shake my hand."

You turn, slowly, and you do, with the hand not holding your knife, ready to attack if necessary.

A whoopie cushion.

Okay.

Your disinterest in this must show on your face, because the grinning skeleton looking back at you seems discomforted. You listen without much interest, not bothering to hide when he tells you to. You can probably kill both him and his brother, if his brother really does want to capture you. Sans, and Papyrus, you distantly catch. Whatever.

"My brother really wants to catch a human," Sans says. "So it'd really help him out... if you kept pretending to be one."

His words fill you with spitting rage. You're the most human one here. They're the monsters - literally. That doesn't even make any sense.

Your path through Snowdin Forest is long and winding, and full of more monsters attacking you. At this point, you just kill everything in sight out of pure habit. You begin to enjoy the feeling of dust coating your hands. They don't deserve to stand in your way, so you cut hem all down.

A voice in your head counts down, though you're not sure why that number is what you've decided on. It doesn't really matter.

There's a guard service, in this forest, it seems. A bunch of dogs.

You never really liked dogs.

Most of them fall with just a few hits from the knife, or the boxing glove you picked up along the way. Their whimpers as they die don't bother you.

You run into the skeleton brothers along the way, too. Papyrus keeps trying to make you do more God-awful puzzles. You just walk through them. You had enough puzzles for a lifetime in the ruins. Sans berates you for making Papyrus upset when you do that, but what do you care?

The other puzzles seem to have been solved by someone already. By who, you don’t know… But it saves you the trouble, at least.

You express your clear disinterest in the puzzles and in playing along with Papyrus, but he just keeps trying, just keeps insisting. It doesn't make any sense, and it startles you to the point where you don't attack him when you see him. He's not even trying to kill you, just to capture you, to stall you in place. Why won't he just give up and fight you? You've made it clear it won't work, you won't give in to his stupid puzzles.

But he just keeps trying, acting so annoyingly positive. And his brother - he seems almost threatening when he asks you to play along, but he keeps grinning and making those stupid puns.

Your blank stare finally seems to get to Papyrus, on the bridge, at least. He squirms uncomfortably and puts away his doom bridge (shame, that one looked almost interesting), saying he'd save it for someone who'd appreciate it more and disappearing into town.

You don't feel bad about how disappointed in you he seems. Not at all.

Sans tells you you're gonna have a bad time, if you keep going this way, a clear threat. You raise your glove, but by the time you've thrown your first punch, he's already vanished. You grit your teeth. Maybe you would, but so would he.

You turn, and continue on the bridge. Nothing for it but to keep going, right? Prove him wrong.

Determination.

* * *

By the time you get to town, the forest thoroughly emptied out, they've all apparently caught word of you and evacuated. Good. They won't stand in your way.

One kid remains behind, and you could almost laugh at their stupidity. They don't even recognize you as the threat the others all fled for. It's almost pitiable, really - their parents didn't even care enough to make sure they came with them.

But you don't care, so you keep moving. You stuff your pockets with gold and cinnamon buns and tie a bandana around your head, replacing the ribbon that had become tattered and covered in dust, and then you make your way to the edge of town.

You make out a shape, squinting through the fog, and groan internally as Papyrus speaks up.

"Halt, human!" he calls, and you take a step forward, just to mess with him. He seems bothered by this. "Hey, quit moving while I'm talking to you!"

You take another step.

He continues on, undeterred. "I, the great Papyrus," (he's so arrogant, isn't he?), "have some things to say. First: You're a freaking weirdo!"

That stings a little. Look who's talking, bud.

"Not only do you not like puzzles, but the way you shamble about from place to place..." You don't shamble. You just take it slow. "The way your hands are always covered in dusty powder. It feels... Like your life is going down a dangerous path."

...He doesn't even know? He doesn't know that you're covered with the dust of dead monsters? He doesn't know how many you've killed, why the whole town evacuated?

It's almost laughable.

Or maybe he does know. That would make him even stupider, to still stand here.

“However! I, Papyrus, see great potential within you! Everyone can be a great person if they try!" ...what. "And me, I hardly have to try at all! Nyeh heh heh heh heh heh!" What.

You take another step forward, your gloved hand shaking. "Hey, quit moving! This is exactly what I am talking about!" You stop, mustering a glare at him. "Human! I think you are in need of guidance! Someone needs to keep you on the straight and narrow!"

What - what is he doing? What is he doing? This doesn't make sense. Why isn't he trying to stop you, why isn't he fighting, or giving you another stupid puzzle?

"But worry not! I, Papyrus... will gladly be your friend and tutor! I will turn your life right around!"

This doesn't make any sense. Toriel - Toriel offered you guidance, and acceptance, and a home, but she didn’t know what you had already done. She'd be disgusted and take it back if she found out. But Papyrus… there's no way he doesn't know at least some of what you've done. Why is he offering to - to help you? This doesn't make any sense, why isn't he trying to kill you, he said himself he’s trying to be part of the royal guard, why isn't he trying to kill you, why isn’t he trying to stop you? Why - why is he just standing there?

You take another shaky step forward, holding your hands in curled fists in the gloves.

"I see you are approaching," Papyrus says. "Are you offering a hug of acceptance?" Idiot. "Wowie!! My lessons are already working!!" Idiot, idiot, idiot. "I, Papyrus, welcome you with open arms!" Idiot, idiot, he's so stupid, why can't he see what you're going to do to him? What's wrong with him? Why is he so open, why is he just smiling at you, why does he want to be your fried, why isn't he trying to kill you?

Your hands shake. Your whole body trembles.

The more you kill, the easier it becomes to distance yourself. The more you distance yourself, the less you will hurt. The more easily you can bring yourself to hurt others.

But maybe not easily enough.

You take another shaking step, and another, and another, and you drop your hands and collapse into Papyrus' waiting arms, feeling him wrap you in a hug. You're not crying - you half expected yourself to be - you're just standing there, your legs trembling, as his bony arms wrap around you in a hug that shouldn't be as comforting as it is. You feel numb, honestly. You're not sure why you didn't kill him.

He was just blocking your way, is all. You should've killed him, but... he wasn't even trying to hurt you, he wasn't doing anything.

"Wowie!!!" you hear him say, distantly. "You didn't do a violence!" You barely hear the rest of his speech, just slowly pulling away and recollecting yourself, clutching your glove tightly.

"I'll be at home, being a cool friend! Feel free to come by and hang out!" he says, and heads off. You watch him, for a minute, your eyes wide.

And then you follow.

You’re not sure what it is, but… you feel... something. It fills you with... determination.


End file.
